[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 64 (Wednesday, May 8, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E621-E622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO MARK PALMER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 8, 2013

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, there are some who argue that the world's 
destinies are shaped by impersonal forces rather than by the courage 
and determination of individual men and women.
  I believe that historians of that persuasion never met my friend, and 
freedom's friend, Mark Palmer. I rise to celebrate the life of 
Ambassador Mark Palmer, who died recently after a characteristically 
brave and uncomplaining twenty year battle against melanoma.
  But for Mark's controversial determination while U.S. ambassador to 
Hungary that the barbed wire fences between Hungary and Austria should 
be severed in order to allow East Germans to leave the Communist orbit, 
the Berlin Wall might still be standing. But for his brave willingness 
to openly challenge Hungary's Communist government when conventional 
thinkers at the State Department and elsewhere were worried about the 
``destabilizing'' effects of a Communist collapse, the Soviet Empire 
might still be in power. But for Mark's years of incomparably 
influential service as a speechwriter and pro-democracy advocate to 
three Presidents and six Secretaries of State, America might not have 
understood how the promotion of human rights, democracy and American 
values strategically tracks with the promotion of American national 
security interests.
  There are many examples of how history was made by the man once 
described by The New York Times ``as the most active Western booster 
for economic and political liberalization'' of Communist dictatorships. 
They are examples of why, at the celebration of the 20th anniversary of 
Hungary's liberation from communist dictatorship, Mark was awarded a 
Commander's Cross of Hungary's Order of Merit because, as ``the right 
man at the right time at the right place . . . he rose to the occasion 
[of] shepherding democratic opposition . . . through . . . turbulent 
times by giving [it] legitimacy.'' They are reasons why Mark received 
three Presidential Awards and two Superior Honor Awards from the 
Department of State during a 26 year career as a Foreign Service 
officer.
  A great moment in Mark Palmer's career--and proof of how his ideas 
have shaped events--was his role while in the Foreign Service as co-
drafter of President Ronald Reagan's great 1982 Westminster Hall 
``Democracy Crusade'' speech on democracy and human rights. The speech, 
whose every word had to be fought through a resistant bureaucracy, was 
a critical step in moving the United States from a policy of accepting 
and containing communism to what became the successful policy of 
peacefully challenging it. Thanks to Mark, the speech also led to the 
establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy--which he had 
proposed and later served as a key board member.
  After his Foreign Service career, Mark served for nearly twenty years 
as Vice Chair of Freedom House, one of America's primary human rights 
organizations. He was honorary chair and co-founder of the 
International Management Center in Budapest, Hungary and served on the 
boards of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 
the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, the 
Budapest International Centre for Democratic Transition, the American 
Academy of Diplomacy, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and 
Training, the University of the District of Columbia, the Friends of 
Falun Gong, and the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on 
Democracy Promotion.
  Mark was the brains and inspiration behind another great institution 
whose positive impact will grow over the years. He helped to establish 
the Community of Democracies, a global assembly of democratic 
governments that now meets annually in support of democracy and human 
rights and to deepen the bonds between democratic governments. Mark 
served as Vice Chair of the Community's permanent operating body, its 
Council. As but one example of the Council's work and Mark's efforts on 
its behalf, he initiated and helped write increasingly influential 
training handbooks that guide U.S. diplomats and military officers to 
assist democratic promotion and transition. In Mark's honor, the 
Council established Palmer Prizes for contributions by diplomats to the 
advancement of democracy that were first awarded in 2011 to diplomats 
from seven countries for pro-human rights efforts in such nations as 
Belarus, Cuba and Zimbabwe.
  A frequent author of policy and advocacy pieces to leading media 
outlets, and of expert testimony and counsel to Congress and the 
Executive Branch, Mark published in 2003 his groundbreaking Breaking 
the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025. 
In it, he argued for a revamping of U.S. foreign policy to make 
worldwide promotion of democracy a primary goal. Legislation based on 
the book was sponsored by Senator John McCain and my late colleague and 
fellow Palmer admirer Tom Lantos, and was signed into law by President 
George W. Bush on August 3, 2007. Entitled ``ADVANCE Democracy Act of 
2007'', it was described by a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace as ``. . . the most important bill . . . on 
democracy promotion since the 1983 initiative to establish the National 
Endowment for Democracy . . .''
  Mark's business career was as successful as his diplomatic career and 
was often focused on the same objectives. Knowing the critical value of 
free and unmonitored information in dictatorial and post-dictatorial 
countries, he founded Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. which, 
with local partners, established, owned and operated the first 
politically independent national television stations in the Czech 
Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. He was a co-
founder of Television Development Partners and Signal One Media 
Corporation--ventures for the establishment of independent, commercial 
satellite TV channels in the Middle East. He chaired the advisory board 
of New Tang Dynasty Television, and strongly backed the launch of the 
first uncensored satellite TV broadcasts into China.
  In what may prove as great a contribution to 21st century world 
freedom as those Mark made during the 20th century, he led the effort 
to establish a robust U.S. initiative to overcome the Internet 
firewalls of China, Iran and other closed society regimes. Mark knew 
what the world's dictators know--that Internet firewalls are present 
day equivalents of the brick and barbed wire walls he helped bring down 
in the 20th century. He knew what China's former Premier Hu Jintao has 
openly acknowledged--that the ability of closed society regimes to 
``purify'' the Internet is critical to their ability to remain in 
power. Thus, when millions of house church Christians freely and safely 
conduct worship services over their mobile phones in China, and when 
hundreds of thousands of Iranians in and out of the country conduct 
interactive town meetings--as I believe will soon occur--this 
development will be a tribute to the vision that Mark inspired many of 
us to share during the latter part of his productive life.
  Mark came early to his activism in the cause of human rights, 
participating during the early 1960s in Freedom Bus rides and other 
civil rights demonstrations while a student at Yale University, from 
which he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Taking similar 
action, Mark regularly sought out and met with dissidents in Moscow and 
Belgrade early in his career as a junior Foreign Service Officer. As a 
private citizen, he returned to Belgrade in 1996 to march with students 
against the criminal regime of then Serbian President Slobodan 
Milosevic.
  Patriotism is said to be an honorable competition with one's 
ancestors, and Mark had many models that helped make him the man he 
became. He was born on July 14, 1941 in Ann Arbor, Michigan to the late 
Captain Robie

[[Page E622]]

Ellis Palmer, USN and the late Katherine Hooker Palmer. His mother was 
the granddaughter of Civil War Colonel George W. Hooker, an Antietam 
Medal of Honor winner of the 4th Vermont Volunteers who was later 
appointed Assistant Adjutant General of Union Army Volunteers by 
President Lincoln. Not long after Mr. Palmer's birth, his father left 
to take command of the submarine USS Pollack, which operated in the 
Pacific theater and served in several dangerous missions in Japanese 
waters.
  America--and the world--will miss Mark. But as my colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle know--Mark's legacy will be with us for years and 
generations to come. When men and women escape the chains of 21st 
century oppression, they will be in Mark Palmer's debt as we, his 
friends, will forever be.
  Finally, in rising to celebrate Mark I rise as well to celebrate his 
cherished partner in all that he accomplished during his distinguished 
career--his wife of 47 years, Dr. Sushma Palmer.

                          ____________________